InternufionnlSkUisfical Review (1995), 63,1,25-34, hinted in M~NcO
@ International Statistical Institute
How Students Learn Statistics
Joan Garfield
The General College, 140 Appleby Hall, 128 Pleasant St. S.E., University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, MN 54544, USA
Summary
Research in the areas of psychology, statistical education, and mathematics education is reviewed
and the results applied to the teaching of college-level statistics courses. The argument is made that
statistics educators need to determine what it is they really want students to learn, to modify their
teaching according to suggestions from the research literature, and to use assessment to determine if
their teaching is effective and if students are developing statistical understanding and competence.
Key words: Statistical education; Misconceptions;Teaching and learning
1 Introduction
Many statisticians are involved in teaching statistics either formally in a college classroom or
informally in an industrial setting. Regardless of the setting, a major concern of those who teach
statistics is how to ensure that the students understand statistical ideas and are able to apply what
they learn to real-world situations. Although teachers of statistics often express frustration about
difficulties students have learning and applying course material, many may be unaware of the growing
body of research related to teaching and learning statistics. In this paper I attempt to summarize this
literature and apply it specifically to improving learning outcomes in college-level statistics courses.
2 Theories of Learning
Before looking at research related to learning statistics, it is important to think about how students
learn in general. Learning in a course is more complex than merely remembering what students have
read or been told, and many of us have found that students do not necessarily learn by having us
explain to them how to solve a problem. In fact, it is frustrating to work out a problem elegantly,
explaining all the steps clearly, and then find out hardly any of the students understand it.
Many of us have informal learning theories that guide our teaching approaches. Some theories
of learning are well defined and have recognizable names such as behaviorism, or cognitivism. In
describing how students learn or think, theories of learning serve as a basis for theories of instruction
that draw conclusions about how instruction should be carried out (Romberg & Carpenter, 1986).
What happens in a particular course can be viewed as an interaction between the teacher's goals for
what students should learn, views of students' characteristics and abilities, theory of how students
learn, and assumptions about how students should be taught.
A recent theory of learning which has been widely accepted in education communities stems from
earlier work by Jean Piaget, and has been labelled 'constructivism.' This theory describes learning as
actively constructing one's own knowledge (Von Glasersfeld, 1987). Today, this is the guiding theory
for much research and reform in mathematics and science education. Constructivists view students
as bringing to the classroom their own ideas, material. Rather than 'receiving' material in class
as it is given, students restructure the new information to fit into their own cognitive frameworks.
In this manner, they actively and individually construct their own knowledge, rather than copying
knowledge 'transmitted', 'delivered' or 'conveyed' to them. A related theory of teaching focuses
on developing students' understanding, rather than on rote skill development, and views teaching
as a way to provide opportunities for students to actively construct knowledge rather than having
knowledge 'given' to them.
Theories of learning and instruction interact with teachers' particular goals for what students
should learn in their courses. What are the skills and ideas teachers would really like their students to
take away from their statistics courses? These goals do not necessarily correspond to what students
are asked on quizzes or exams. If teachers were asked what they would really like students to know
six months or one year after completing an introductory statistics course, most would probably
not respond that students should know how to compute a standard deviation by hand, know how
to convert normal variables to standard normal variables and look up their probabilities on the z
table, or compute expected values. Many would indicate that they would like students to understand
some basic statistical concepts and ideas, to become statistical thinkers, and to be able to evaluate
quantitative information. A poignant way to think about this question is to ask 'what would you feel
MOST bad about your former students not knowing about after completing a statistics course?'
3 Goals for Students
I believe that we really want students to gain an understanding of ideas such as the following:
(a) The idea of variability of data and summary statistics.
(b) Normal distributions are useful models though they are seldom perfect fits.
(c) The usefulness of sample characteristics (and inference made using these measures) depends
critically on how sampling is conducted.
(d) A correlation between two variables does not imply cause and effect.
(e) Statistics can prove very little conclusively although they may suggest things, and therefore
statistical conclusions should not be blindly accepted.
Statisticians are already discussing these general notions as central goals for student learning. A
list of prioritized topics is given by Hogg (1990) based on a discussion at a workshop of statisticians
regarding what the goals for an introductory statistics course should be. Moore (1991) has also
specified, core elements of statistical thinking in terms of what students should be learning in
statistics classes.
In addition to concepts, skills, and types of thinking, most statisticians would probably agree that
we also have attitude goals for how we would like students to view statistics as a result of our courses.
Such attitude goals are:
(a) It is important to learn some fundamentals of statistics in order to better understand and
evaluate information in the world.
(b) Anyone can learn important ideas of statistics by working hard at it, using good study habits,
and working together with others.
(c) Learning statistics means learning to communicate using the statistical language, solving statistical problems, drawing conclusions, and supporting conclusions by explaining the reasoning
behind them.
(d) There are often different ways to solve a statistical problem.
(e) People may come to different conclusions based on the same data if they have different
assumptions and use different methods of analysis.
How Students Learn Statistics
27
Once we have articulated our goals for students in statistics classes, we need to address the issue
of how we enable students to learn these ideas and to change their already established beliefs about
statistics. Many college statistics classes consist of listening to lectures and doing assignments in
textbooks or in computer labs. Do these activities help achieve the goals for our students? Are
students being adequately prepared to use statistical thinking and reasoning, to collect and analyze
data, to write up and communicate the results of solving real statistical problems?
Much research has been done that indicates that students are not learning what we want them to.
Reviews by Garfield & Ahlgren (1988), by Scholz (1991), and by Shaughnessy (1992), summarize
research related to learning and understanding probability and statistics. The studies reviewed tend
to fall in two categories: psychological research and statistics education research. In addition, some
studies in mathematics education offer additional insights into the teaching and learning of quantitative information. Relevant findings from these three areas of research are summarized briefly
below.
4 Psychological Research
Most of the published research consists of studies of how adults understand or misunderstand
particular statistical ideas. A seminal series of studies by Kahneman, Slovic & Tversky (1982)
revealed some prevalent ways of thinking about statistics that are inconsistent with a correct technical
understanding. Some salient examples of these faulty 'heuristics' are summarized below.
Representativeness
People estimate the likelihood of a sample based on how closely it resembles the population. (If
you are randomly sampling sequences of 6 births in a hospital, where B represents a male birth and
G a female birth; BGGBGG is believed to be a more likely outcome than BBBBBG.) Use of this
heuristic also leads people to judge small samples to be as likely as large ones to represent the same
population. (70% Heads is believed to be just as likely an outcome for 1000 tosses as for 10 tosses
of a fair coin.)
Gamblers fallacy
Use of the representative heuristic leads to the view that chance is a self-correcting process. After
observing a long run of heads, most people believe that now a tail is 'due' because the occurrence of
a tail will result in a more representative sequence than the occurrence of another head.
Base-rate fallacy
People ignore the relative sizes of population subgroups when judging the likelihood of contingent
events involving the subgroups. For example, when asked the probability of a hypothetical student
taking history (or economics), when the overall proportion of students in these courses is 0.70 and
0.30 respectively, people ignore these base rates and instead rely on information provided about the
student's personality to determine which course is more likely to be chosen by that student.
Availability
Strength of association is used as a basis for judging how likely an event will occur. (E.g., estimating
the divorce rate in your community by recalling the divorces of people you know, or estimating the risk
of a heart attack among middle-aged people by counting the number of middle-aged acquaintances
who have had heart attacks.) As a result, people's probability estimates for an event are based on
how easily examples of that event are recalled.
Conjunction fallacy
The conjunction of two correlated events is judged to be more likely than either of the events
themselves. For example, a description is given of a 3 1-year old woman named Linda who is single,
outspoken, and very bright. She is described as a former philosophy major who is deeply concerned
with issues of discrimination and social justice. When asked which of two statements are more likely,
fewer pick A: Linda is a bank tellel; than B: Linda is a bank teller active in the feminist niovement,
even though A is more likely than B.
Additional research has identified misconceptionsregarding correlation and causality (Kahneman,
Slovic & Tversky; 1982), conditional probability (e.g., Falk, 1988; Pollatsek, Well, Konold &
Hardiman; 1987), independence, (e.g., Konold, 1989b)randomness (e.g., Falk, 1981;Konold, 1991),
the Law of Large Numbers (e.g., Well, Pollatsek & Boyce; 1990), and weighted averages (e.g.,
Mevarech, 1983; Pollatsek, Lima & Well, 1981).
A related theory of recent interest is the idea of the outcome orientation (Konold, 1989a). According
to this theory, people use a model of probability that leads them to make yes or no decisions about
single events rather than looking at the series of events. For example: A weather forecaster predicts
the chance of rain to be 70% for 10 days. On 7 of those 10 days it actually rained. How good were his
forecasts? Many students will say that the forecaster did not do such a good job, because if should
have rained on all days on which he gave a 70% chance of rain. They appear to focus on outcomes
of single events rather than being able to look at series of events-70% chance of rain means that
it should rain. Similarly, a forecast of 30% rain would mean it will not rain. 50% chance of rain is
interpreted as meaning that you cannot tell either way. The power of this notion is evident in the
college student who, on the verge of giving it up, made this otherwise perplexing statement: 'I don't
believe in probability; because even if there is a 20% chance of rain, it could still happen' (Falk &
Konold, 1992, p. 155).
The conclusion of this body of research by psychologists seems to be that inappropriate reasoning
about statistical ideas is widespread and persistent, similar at all age levels (even among some
experienced researchers), and quite difficult to change (Garfield & Ahlgren, 1988).
5 Statistical Education Research
A second area of research conducted primarily by statistics educators, is focused less on general
patterns of thinking, and more on how statistics is learned. Some of these studies have contradicted
implications of the psychological studies described earlier (e.g., Borovcnik, 1991; Konold et al.,
1991; Garfield & delMas, 1991). For example, some of these studies indicate that students' use of
heuristics (such as representativeness and availability) seems to vary with problem context.
Garfield & DelMas (1991) examinedperformance of studentsin an introductorycourse on a variety
of parallel problems, designed to elicit use of the representative heuristic. Their results suggest that
students do not rely exclusively on the representativeness heuristic to answer all problems of a similar
type. Konold et al. (1991) hypothesized that inconsistencies in student responses are caused by a
variety of perspectives with which students reason. Students appear to understand and reconstruct
a problem in different ways, leading them to apply different strategies to solve them. Borovcnik &
Bentz (1991) discuss other reasons for inconsistencies in student responses, such as the constraints
imposed by artificial experiments and ambiguity of questions used.
Additional research on learning probability and statistics suggests ways to help students learn, as
well as problems that need to be considered.
How Students Learn Statistics
29
What helps students learn
Activity-based courses and use of small groups appear to help students overcome some misconceptions of probability (Shaughnessy, 1977) and enhance student learning of statistics
concepts (Jones, 1991).
When students are tested and provided feedback on their misconceptions, followed by corrective activities (where students are encouraged to explain solutions, guess answers before computing them, and look back at their answers to determine if they make sense), this
'corrective-feedback' strategy appears to help students overcome their misconceptions (e.g.,
believing that means have the same properties as simple numbers) (Mevarech, 1983).
Students' ideas about the likelihood of samples (related to the representativeness heuristic)
are improved by having them make predictions before gathering data to solve probability
problems, then comparing the experimentalresults to their original predictions (Shaughnessy,
1977; delMas & Bart, 1987; and Garfield & delMas, 1989).
Use of computer simulations appears to lead students to give more correct answers to a
variety of probability problems (Garfield & delMas, 1991; Simon, Aktinson & Shevokas,
1976; Weissglass & Cummings, 1991).
Using software that allows students to visualize and interact with data appears to improve
students' understanding of random phenomena (Weissglass & Cummings, 1991) and their
learning of data analysis (Rubin, Rosebery & Bruce, 1988).
Problems to be considered
Training involvingapplication of the Law of Large Numbers may improve students' reasoning
about samples of data (Nisbettet al., 1987).Other studies contradictedthese results and showed
that students' responses to a narrow type of probability problem improved, but their thinking
did not (Shaughnessy, 1992).
Students may answer items correctly on a test because they know what the expected answer
is, but still have incorrect ideas. In a study involving students in various courses, students
were able to say that different sequences of coin tosses were all equally likely when asked
which was most likely to occur. However, when asked which was least likely to occur, they
unperturbedly selected one or another particular sequence (Konold, 1989b).
Students' misconceptions are resilient and difficult to change. Instructors cannot expect students to ignore their strong intuitions merely because they are given contradictory information
in class (Konold, 1989b; Well et al., 1990; delMas & Garfield, 1991).
6 Mathematics Education Research
In addition to the research on learning and understanding statistical ideas, several studies on
methods of improving students' general mathematical competence have relevance for teaching
statistics. Many of these studies appear in reviews by Romberg & Carpenter (1986) and Silver
(1990) and help reinforce and extend the research on statistical learning. The relevant findings are
summarized below:
More time spent on developing understanding (e.g., discussing why an algorithm works, how
skills are interrelated, and how one concept is distinguished from other) leads to increased
student performance on problem solving tests.
Use of small groups leads to better group productivity, improved attitudes, and sometimes,
increased achievement.
Having students read through worked-out examples may be more effective than having them
work through many of the conventionalexercises assigned as homework.
Students learn more from working on open-ended problems than from goal-specificproblems
where there is one right answer.
'Writing to learn' mathematics activitiesappear to be helping studentsunderstand mathematics
better.
Research on particularly innovativeprograms emphasizing problem solving and higher order
thinking indicates that students do better on these activities than do students in traditional
programs, without suffering any loss on traditional tests.
All of these results may be relevant to learning specifically statistical ideas.
7 Principles of Learning Statistics
Based on the relevant research in the context of constructivist principles, I have formulated some
general principles of learning statistics:
Students learn by constructing knowledge
Many research studies both in education and in psychology support the theory that students learn
by constructing their own knowledge, not by passive absorption of information (Resnick, 1987,
von Glasersfeld, 1987). Regardless of how clearly a teacher or book tells them something, students
will understand the material only after they have constructed their own meaning for what they are
learning. Moreover, ignoring, dismissing, or merely 'disproving' the students' current ideas will
leave them intact-and they will outlast the thin veneer of course content.
Students do not come to class as 'blank slates' or 'empty vessels' waiting to be filled, but
instead approach learning activities with significant prior knowledge. In learning somet5ing new,
they interpret the new information in terms of the knowledge they already have, constructing their
own meanings by connecting the new information to what they already believe. Students tend to
accept new ideas only when their old ideas do not work, or are shown to be inefficient for purposes
they think are important.
Students learn by active involvement in learning activities
Research shows that students learn better if they are engaged in, and motivated to struggle
with, their own learning. For this reason, if no other, students appear to learn better if they work
cooperatively in small groups to solve problems and learn to argue convincingly for their approach
among conflictingideas and methods (NationalResearch Council, 1989).Small-groupactivitiesmay
involve groups of three or four students working in class to solve a problem, discuss a procedure,
or analyze a set of data. Groups may also be used to work on an in-depth project outside of class.
Group activities provide opportunities for students to express their ideas both orally and in writing,
helping them become more involved in their own learning. For suggestions on how to develop ~ n d
use cooperative learning activities see Johnson, Johnson & Smith (1991) or Goodsell et al. (1992).
Students learn to do well only what they practice doing
Practice may mean hands-on activities, activities using cooperative small groups, or work on the
computer. Students also learn better if they have experience applying ideas in new situations. If they
practice only calculating answers to familiar, well-defined problems, then that is all they are likely
to learn. Students cannot learn to think critically, analyze information, communicate ideas, make
How Students Learn Statistics
31
arguments, tackle novel situations, unless they are permitted and encouraged to do those things over
and over in many contexts. Merely repeating and reviewing tasks is unlikely to lead to improved
skills or deeper understanding (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1989).
Teachers should not underestimate the dificulty students have in understanding basic concepts of
probability and statistics
Many research studies have shown that ideas of probability and statistics are very difficult for
students to learn and often conflict with many of their own beliefs and intuitions about data and
chance (Shaughnessy, 1992; Garfield & Ahlgren, 1988).
Teachers ofren overestimate how well their students understand basic concepts
A few studies have shown that although students may be able to answer some test items correctly or
perform calculations correctly, they may still misunderstand basic ideas and concepts. For example,
Garfield & delMas (1991) found that when students were asked whether a sample of 10 tosses or
100 tosses of a fair coin was more likely to have exactly 70% heads, students tended to correctly
choose the small sample, which seemed to indicate that they understood that small samples are more
likely to deviate from the population than are large samples. When asked the same questions about
whether a large, urban hospital or a small, rural hospital is more likely to have 70% boys born on a
particular day, students responded that both hospitals were equally likely to have 70% boys born on
that day, indicating that students could not transfer their understanding to a more real-world context.
Learning is enhanced by having students become aware of and confront their misconceptions
Students learn better when activities are structured to help students evaluate the difference between
their own beliefs about chance events and actual empirical results (delMas &Bart, 1989; Shaughnessy,
1977). If students are first asked to make guesses or predictions about data and random events, they are
more likely to care about the actual results. When experimental evidence explicitly contradicts their
predictions, they should be helped to evaluate this difference. In fact, unless students are forced to
record and then compare their predictions with actual results, they tend to see in their data confirming
evidence for their misconceptions of probability. Research in physics instruction also points to this
method of testing beliefs against empirical evidence (e.g., Clement, 1987).
Calculators and computers should be used to help students visualize and explore data, not just to
follow algorithms to predetermined ends
Computer-based instruction appears to help students learn basic statistics concepts by providing
different ways to represent the same data set (e.g., going from tables of data to histograms to boxplots)
or by allowing students to manipulate different aspects of a particular representation in exploring
a data set (e.g., changing the shape of a histogram to see what happens to the relative positions
of the mean and median) (Rubin, Rosebery & Bruce, 1988). Instructional software may be used
to help students understand abstract ideas. For example, students may develop an understanding of
the Central Limit Theorem by constructing various populations and observing the distributions of
statistics computed from samples drawn from these populations. The computer can also be used to
improve students' understanding of probability by allowing them to explore and represent models,
change assumptions and parameters for these models, and analyze data generated by applying these
models (Biehler, 1991).
Students learn better if they receive consistent and helpful feedback on their pelformance
Learning is enhanced if students have opportunities to express ideas and get feedback on their
ideas. Feedback should be analytical, and come at a time when students are interested in it. There
must be time for students to reflect on the feedback they receive, make adjustments, and try again
(AAAS, 1989). For example, evaluation of student projects may be used as a way to give feedback
to students while they work on a problem during a course, not just as a final judgement when they
are finished with the course (Garfield, 1993). Since statistical expertise typically involves more than
mastering facts and calculations, assessment should capture students' ability to reason, communicate,
and apply, their statistical knowledge. A variety of assessment methods should be used to capture the
full range of students' learning (e.g., written and oral reports on projects, minute papers reflecting
students' understanding of material from one class session, or essay questions included on exams).
Teachers should become proficient in developing and choosing appropriate methods that are aligned
with instruction, and should be skilled in communicating assessment results to students (Webb &
Romberg, 1992). For a variety of classroom assessment techniques designed to help instructors better
understand and improve their students' learning, see Angelo & Cross (1993).
Students learn to value what they know will be assessed.
Another reason to expand assessment beyond the exclusive use of traditional tests, is that students
will only apply themselves to those skills and activities on which they know they will be evaluated.
If students know they will be evaluated on their ability to critique and communicate statistical
information, or to work collaboratively on a group project, they will be more willing to invest
themselves in improving skills required by these activities.
Use of the suggested methods of teaching will not ensure that all students will learn the material.
No method is perfect and will work with all students. Several research studies in statistics as well
as in other disciplines show that students' misconceptions are often strong and resilient-they are
slow to change, even when students are confronted with evidence that their beliefs are incorrect. And
this is only part of the problem. Another is whether students are engaged enough to struggle with
learning new ideas.
8 Summary: Implications for Teaching
Statistics teaching can be more effective if teachers determine what it is they really want students
to know and do as a result of their course-and then provide activities designed to develop the
performance they desire. Appropriate assessment needs to be incorporated into the learning process
so that teachers and students can determine whether the learning goals are being achieved-in
time to do something about shortcomings before the course is over. Teachers need to consider the
implications of research findings and determine how they relate to particular courses, students, and
available resources. There is not just one blueprint for change.
Statistics educators should think about and continually assess their personal theories of learning
and teaching in light of the evidence classroom experience provides. Teachers should experiment with
different teaching approaches and activities and monitor the results, not only by using conventional
tests but by carefully listening to students and evaluating information reflecting different aspects of
their learning. In this way, teachers may continually analyze and refine their theories of how students
learn statistics.
Finally, students should be encouraged to assess their own learning as well as their notions of how
they learn, by giving them opportunities to reflect on the teachingnearning process.
How Students Learn Statistics
33
9 Further Research
Despite the abundance of research studies cited above, most of them have only general implications.
Much is still to be learned about particular problems. Important questions that still need to be asked
include:
(a) How does the use of computers improve student learning of particular concepts and help
overcome particular misconceptions? E.g., what hnds of computer labs work best in developing
the idea of particular concepts, such as averages or sampling variability?
(b) What techniques are most effective in confronting and overcoming particular misconceptions?
(c) What specific small-group activities work best in helping students learn particular concepts
and develop particular reasoning skills?
(d) What types of assessment procedures and materials best inform teachers about students'
understanding?
Results of research studies based on these questions, along with the base of knowledge already
summarized, will help us to rethink what in statistics is most important to learn, how it should be
taught, and what evidence of success we should seek.
Acknowledgement
This paper is based on the plenary presentation given at the American Statistical Association Winter Meeting in Louisville,
Kentucky, January 1992.
I would like to thank Andrew Ahlgren, David Moore, and two reviewers for their comments and suggestions regarding
this paper.
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Rbumk
La recherche dans les domaines de la psychologie et de I'iducation en statistique et en mathematique est revue et les
ksultats sont appliquts B I'enseignement des cours de la statistique au niveau collCgial. On Cnonce I'argument que les
Cducateurs en statistique doivent diterrniner ce qu'ils veulent vraiment enseigner aux Ctudiants. Ainsi, ils seront en mesure de
modifier leur mCthode d'enseignement selon les suggestions provenant des documents de la recherche, et ils seront Cgalement
en mesure d'utiliser les Cvaluations qui visent B dkterminer si leur mCthode d'enseignement est efficace et si les Ctudiants
Claborent une compkhension et des compitences en matiere de statistiques.
[Received September 1992, accepted May 19931